This weekend featured a very rare occurrence for the Griffs hockey team as the game scheduled at Mercyhurst was canceled due to a water issue the school experienced. In my four years here at Canisius a game had never been cancelled for any reason so it came as a huge surprise to everyone when we heard the news. At first, most of the team thought it was a joke and it took everyone a while to fathom this.

As a result, the only game of the weekend was played at Buffalo State and was a great game for the Griffs. It ended in a 4-2 victory, which allowed us to secure two very valuable points. Our league is very close this year as opposed to past years, which makes every game even more important and with Mercyhurst so close in the standings, we treated it as a four-point night.

The highlight of the game had to be freshman Ralph Cuddemi scoring his first goal as a member of the Canisius Hockey team, which added a little extra excitement to the win.

The game that had originally been scheduled for Friday was instead played the following Tuesday at Mercyhurst and unfortunately the result was not what we had hoped for. It was a tight game until late in the third where the Lakers ran away with the game, eventually leading to a 5-2 loss.

Next on the schedule is a set of home games against Holy Cross, who is a very tough opponent and was very recently ranked in the top 20 poll. This is another team we are very close to in the standings, which makes this weekend another one of significant importance.

With only 10 games remaining in the season every victory could mean the difference from finishing in the top four or the bottom four.

Not only do the boys have to focus on the rest of the hockey season, but now that the second semester of school has been underway for a few weeks, assignments and tests start to enter into the picture, which also gains the attention of every player.

The great aspect of this semester is that the majority of our long trips are over and the majority of our remaining schedule is against teams that are fairly local and there are only a handful of overnight trips remaining. This makes accomplishing schoolwork much easier and allows all the boys some extra opportunities to focus on their academics.

As always we appreciate your support and with several home games remaining as the regular season comes to an end we would love to see as many people as possible come out and cheer on the boys as we look to secure a spot in our final four tournament in Rochester.